Operation Vanguard: The full text of Christopher Shale's devastating memo

Guido has the scoop today: the full text of Operation Vanguard, a forthright memo written by Christopher Shale before his death at Glastonbury over the weekend. Strikingly, it looks like Tory High Command was desperate to keep this away from the public eye.

The first three words of the report are "Private and confidential"; but this postscript in particular reads as if it was tacked on by CCHQ:

Until Vanguard has been formally adopted by WOCA’s Executive Council it is a personal proposal from me, as chairman. That’s why you will find many uses of the first person singular in this document. If it’s adopted it will become agreed collective strategy; and in every appropriate context, I will become we.

Yet Shale is careful to thank "everyone at WOCA [the West Oxfordshire Conservative Association], CCHQ and No.10 who has given their time, support and ideas. It’s been a perfect model of intra-party co-operation."

He adds: "Everybody wants Vanguard to be successful."

So clearly this memo had David Cameron's blessing – "DC", incidentally, is how Tory insiders have referred to their leader for years – and you can see why James Forsyth's story in The Mail on Sunday would have caused distress to all involved, including the PM himself.

This is how Shale summarised the Conservative Party's approach to its plummeting membership:

Please join us. It costs £25. There are no real benefits. Individually we’re ok – some of us are your friends even – but collectively we’re sometimes not a very attractive group of people. Our parties aren’t fun. It’s a slippery slope to political activism. You’ll always have to support us, even when you know we’re wrong. You’ll have to go public about being a Tory and face the consequences with your non-Tory friends. Oh and by the way, we’re after as much of your money as we can get; and we’ll never stop asking for it.

It's a sad note on which to end – and made sadder because Christopher Shale was bang on the money.